It is no secret that big business has long been an ally of the Republican Party. But what has been a secret is which corporations have supported the party’s gubernatorial campaign operation. Until this week.

“It’s not that you don’t suspect this, but here you see these companies paying the governors for access,” Melanie Sloan, the executive director of CREW, told The New York Times. “Americans all think it’s pay-to-play politics. This is what confirms it.”

Campaign finance reformers said the news demonstrated the problem with allowing corporations to pour millions of dollars into elections without more transparency rules in place. “This is a classic example of how corporations are trying to use secret money, hidden from the American people, to buy influence, and how the governors association is selling it,” Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, a nonpartisan reform group, told the Times.

Instead of attempting to defend the huge contributions, the RGA blasted the reporting by CREW, claiming the document release was motivated by a partisan desire to help the Democratic Party.